A large number of vehicles, for example, heavy duty trucks such as trailers or light duty trucks such as pickup trucks, typically are multi-wheeled comprising two or more wheels mounted on each side of a single axle. The multi-wheeled feature increases the overall stability and the payload or the towing capacity of these vehicles. For enhancing the stability and the payload of these multi-wheeled vehicles, an optimum amount of air pressure needs to be maintained in each of the tires. Valve stems used for filling air in the tires of these vehicles are typically mounted inside a wheel rim on which the tire is mounted. These valve stems are either press fitted or secured with help of retainer nuts inside the wheel rim. Due to vibrations and shocks experienced while in transit, the retainer nuts tend to loosen and in turn leak air from the tires through the valve stems. Moreover, these multi-wheeled vehicles typically are subjected to a constant usage year round in all the seasons. Use of these vehicles in cold climates leads to the tire valve stem gasket becoming hard and losing its seal on the wheel rim. This in turn leads to leakage of air from the tire through the valve stems. Therefore, the valve stems are required to be tightened periodically in order to maintain an optimum amount of tire inflation.
Traditionally use of a conventional wrench for valve repair, for example, tightening of a leaking valve stem of a tire mounted on an inner side of a multi-wheeled vehicle, would typically require un-mounting one or more tires on the outside to execute the valve repair and then remounting each of the un-mounted outside tires. This un-mounting and remounting of the outside tires is time consuming and labor intensive for the mechanics performing the valve repair. Typically the time required in performing the valve repair with the conventional wrenches is about one hour to about two hours and is therefore a labor intensive and costly process. Moreover, the conventional wrenches available for performing the valve repairs are neither designed with adjustable lengths nor adjustable to multiple sizes and multiple head diameters. Furthermore, the wrench heads are linearly attached to the wrench bodies thus adding to the amount of mechanical force required to be exerted by the mechanics for tightening the valve stems. Furthermore, these conventional wrenches are not designed to access inaccessible areas of a wheel rim and therefore increase the time required in performing the valve repairs.
Hence, there is a long felt but unresolved need for a tire stem torque device that allows tightening of a valve stem of a tire mounted on an inner side of an axle without un-mounting one or more tires mounted on the axle on an outside of the tire. Moreover, there is a need for an improved, cost effective tire stem torque device with adjustable length that enables creation of maximum torque for tightening the valve stem with minimum work effort, in minimum time. Furthermore, there is a need for a tire stem torque device that comprises a head member configurable in multiple sizes and diameters and that is attached to the body of the tire stem torque device at a predefined angle allowing easy tightening of the valve stem located at inaccessible areas inside the wheel rim.